@Lambjr088 TM stands for trademark. Read the whole thread (especially @onloop’s reply) to understand the VESC’s history.
I agree that either @trampa should explain why he is exempt from Vedder’s trademarks or Vedder should explain what he himself wants to do with HIS trademarks. I fully understand why Vedder took out the trademarks but think that he should definitely license reliable sellers (fee per VESC sold) to sell his amazing open source product - no shipping cost to different continents if suppliers in each continent.
Thank you for explaining about the TM @trampa, enjoy your Sunday with your kids. I don’t understand your reference to Microsoft nor how other sellers like ‘esk8.de’ are not using the original hardware. The software of the VESC is vital but as you said in another thread, the VESC 4 doesn’t have the capability to run the latest software - the hardware has also changed hugely. I would also like to point out that the hardware is what others are selling and those that sell the original hardware should be allowed to do so and call it a VESC. However, I do agree that other sellers selling ESCs that are NOT designed by Vedder but still running VESC firmware (e.g. VESC-X) should not have the permission to have VESC in the name. These ESCs should, as you have said, have written in the description ‘based on the VESC designed by Benjamin Vedder’.
As for:[quote=“trampa, post:37, topic:23017”]
We can’t change legislation!
[/quote]
Vedder can keep the trademark but only use it legally against VESCs that do not use his original hardware. Vedder has not used his trademark for a year (correct me if I am wrong) and hence does not NEED to use it.
The esk8 community seems to be full of people who want to do make their market better, but using this trademark wrongly seems to be stifling this open-source, make the community better ethos.
I did not want to give the Vesc another name!
But Trampa has say me to do it!
I wanted to use the name VESK8!
But that does not allow Trampa!
Trampa can do anything with her Koperatin with Vedder
With the name Vesc.
We must accept that
What Trampa says that is so
Unfortunately
Nobody is arguing that Vedder needs to be able to make a living on his design. Nobody is arguing that business is business.
The issue here is that the way in which we are discovering this transition is vague and non-transparent. The people that championed this project when it was nothing deserve some clarity.
Don’t play this community as fools. All this spin is just too much, we deal with it in our daily lives and awful political climate. Esk8 is our escape from all that spin and rubbish. Until now it was our escape from it all.
If you want to repair the damaged optics of this situation please get out in front of it and be honest. The dancing around the truth is painfully obvious. I was planning my next build around a Trampa platform… I’m not sure now. Its like when Metallica went after people downloading songs. People stopped buying their music after that. Again, bad optics.
You know full well that the vesc name has become synonymous with the tech. Its like calling all tissue Kleenex. Legally you may rule the day, but it’s hearts and minds that must be won in order to truly win. The ball is clearly in your court. We’ll just have to wait and watch what you do next.
@onloop You are right and Trampa may use only the name VESC alone. So they throw everyone out of the business, who has sold VESC so far.
This is the thanks to all the people who participated in the VESC.
So it is certain that TRAMPA can make a lot of money.
I bought many things at ESK.DE and am still with today
Very satisfied and it holds unlike Yuneec and Evolve.
No matter what name esk8.de used for the VESC, I will go on with them shopping. I have now 5 boards with which I drive only with the VESC of esk8.de and if you protect this also a little protects the VESC forever.
We were always trying
The original Vedder Vesc
With original parts and quality BV accordingly
We were not on profit but on quality
We have earned money yes
But we have not become rich thereby
We have always donated money to Benjamin
Maybe not as much as others
But we have supported him
We also have his fellow student Linus
Two stroke engines, wheels and Vesc
For his diploma thesis
We were also the ones who did the Vesc Repair in
Europe
Unfortunately set by Trampa.
But since Trampa has certainly already replaced
This is also very profitable!
We tried to produce the Vesc for the community cheaply
In the beginning it was not easy
But we have a manufacturer in Germany who found us
Cheaper Vesc has produced
We have the same given back to the community and our prices
Also lowered.
I do not mind that Benjamin’s money for his
Excellent work gets.
He should, too
I think that’s great
But perhaps you should find a compromise
Where one says, those who have honored his work in honor
Those should be allowed nevertheless the vesc 4.12 further than such
To sell
I disagree with @esk8 my opinion is that this choice will be detrimental to the VESC project. There are two ways this could go:
There is a huge community poll to decide on what to do next --> upsides of both have to be shown as well as downsides to show Vedder communities opinion and arguments. My honest opinion is that the high price for the VESC will reduce sales, and thereby donations to the project and result in lots of closed source projects. As most companies in eboarding are currently small and do not have the money to run their own esc R&D lab, improvements to the VESC will stop as no one will develop it further. This will make the whole hobby of eboarding less interesting with less developments. If the community wants to, it could enforce a policy that all sellers using VESC in their product name have to donate some percentage of their profit each month to Vedder (like a royalty).
Vedder releases his statement that he only wants @trampa to sell his VESC under its rightful name. All the sellers ignore this, knowing that if they are all sued, no one will use his product as this is a community that helped make him money out of his product. Vedder obviously would not want to kill off a product that is great and he has spent so long developing so will not sue the companies (as he has been doing for the past year).
@trampa can’t get quoting to work in my phone, so forgive me if I paraphrase.
Youu said BV has issued a statement just give it time. That’s not the issue, the issue is that you have licensed away the right to us a name that the community developed.
Next you said if you do something stand on your own good name. Really? Maybe you wanna read that again…
I want to know how this protects the consumer because the only benefit I see to this legal exersize is for your company to be able to say VESC and not let others. That has to be promoted by profitablity for Trampa.
I mean, it’s all good, but this at the very least seems like your bullying the little guy. I’ll just keep buying my ‘not Trampa speed controllers’ from someone else.
Good luck with this move, I sincerely hope you can you justify this course of action because if you cannot you have essentially alienated 90% of the builders and all of the manufacturers. Not to mention by doubling the price you have cost BV money, a lot less will be sold.
I would have expected this it of a US Corporation, not someone who had been in the game as a hobbyist and a builder. We remember shit like this.
I get that BV wants to trademark the VESC brand and think it is not that big of a deal as long as the actual project is still open source (actually I would not even be mad if he would make it closed source - it is his time and his project and he can do whatever he wants with it). There were no actual contributions of the community to him besides some donations so he is not obligated in any way to publish any of this.
What bugs me though is that apparently only BV himself holds the trademark but trampa is the one going around trying to enforce it? That seems weird. Also there are probably bigger fish that should be targeted like Maytech (with actual inferior VESCs than the established brands) - why go for a little guy like esk8 that has always stood behind BV.
In terms of “likeability” Trampa has lost some points in my book.
Hadn’t seen that link, reading it now! I suppose all the vendors just have to agree on a new name/ try and contact BV and agree on how much they need to pay him to sell under the name VESC.
It would be amazing to watch a profiteer’s plan to corner the market with bully tactics fizzle. The new name needs to be catchy and simple and we need to all be on board with making it the go to name.
I keep trying to see it from @trampa’s viewpoint (that it is good for the community), but I can’t. It is forcing vendors to not use Vedder’s amazing trademarked esc (neatly avoided saying it), copy/ improve it slighly and sell under a different name. Some profiteering vendors will use the excuse that because their product hasn’t got the slightest hint of Vedder’s name in it, they don’t have to support Vedder’s open source project. This could be disastrous, BUT I respect @trampa helping Vedder with his huge workload and for leaving the project open-source (he could have advised Vedder to make it closed source)! For this reason and the fact that legally he is the only person with rights (I think from what he has said) to sell the esc under its old name, his should be called the VESC and the name for other vendors is to be decided.
Basically, don’t be rude (even if you don’t like what @trampa has done) as from what I have read it was bound to happen and @trampa has been kind to vendors (giving them other options)
The Vesc improve yes,
Since Chacka has also contributed to this
And many other people here
And honor the name of Vesc
But do not deteriorate or build cheaply
to earn a lot of money.
The Vesc has not deserved this
Calling a company out for poor judgement is not rude. A company trying to strongarm their will over the sector is rude. Trying to spin this action as some benevolent charity is condescending and rude. We ask of for transparency and honesty, that’s all.
Could be that Trampa just killed the vesc, this community was a important part on the task of make the vesc visible to all, newbies and people in general. It will be the same community who make the new name and talk about it, who is going to talk about the vesc? Just Tampa? Him alone in that ugly webshop? Humm
For the forgotten vesc R.I.P
I suggest that the facts are accepted without emotion and a new name for the esc that most use in their builds is discussed that vendors can use for their VESCs (had to use it but avoid using it from now on unless referring to @trampa’s product).
I think this could be a tremendous opportunity for a new off-road board company and/or esc designer to step in and share in the market that was previously dominated by others. We’ll either see stagnation or dramatic innovation from this. I for one hope it’s the latter.
